


if I say nothing, there's nothing to disappear

by elizabethelizabeth



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Beards (Facial Hair), Come Eating, Crowley's Facial Hair, Crowley's Mustache, Facials, M/M, No beta we fall like Crowley, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Canon, Resolved Sexual Tension, Scene: Globe Theatre 1601 (Good Omens), and by plot I mean feelings, and the subsequent ruining of it, but make it a lil sad as a treat, except with a little plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24157090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethelizabeth/pseuds/elizabethelizabeth
Summary: Missing Crowley on an empathetic level was only the beginning of what Aziraphale felt, what he tried to ignore on an almost daily basis. Aziraphale missed Crowley’s body heat when seated at a pub counter. He missed Crowley’s sullen glares at a too-loud passerby on an otherwise quiet street. He missed his ill-hidden miracles of holy natures, noticed only because Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice instantly and instinctually the ways in which Crowley was sometimes Good, sometimes Not, and always with Intent.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 225





	if I say nothing, there's nothing to disappear

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled "three times there was come in Crowley's facial hair and one time there wasn't"
> 
> this used to be a 5+1 fic. then it became a 3+1 fic. this only exists because of the cheering and love I've received from the GO-events discord server. special thanks to summerofspock who, when I told them of this idea, yelled with me about the inherent eroticism of semen in body hair. it be like that sometimes, you know? also big thanks to lazulibundtcake, who read a VERY early version of this fic eons ago and assured me that it was v sexy.
> 
> this has not been beta'd since because I've been writing this monstrosity for two months and have the patience of a goldfish. have some words!!!
> 
> title comes from lyrics of Trespassers William's song "Winterstorms"

**1348**

“You call  _ that _ inconspicuous?”

The plan— the plan had been to meet in their tertiary meeting place, a pub on Eastcheap that had passable ale and horrific salt pork. They only met there when circumstances were dire, and the circumstances were...well, they had been direr than this throughout the history of the world. The world had been around a few dozen centuries at that point, there was an infinite list of the times going particularly bad. That year was one of the worst, though; the death and the decay of plague exasperated by summer heat and humidity. A London summer rain meant Aziraphale’s tunic stuck uncomfortably to his skin; that the smell of death permeated his sinuses and had an extended stay. Aziraphale kept dried lavender and sage in his pockets, wrapped in linen stained with the herbs oils. It did little to help, the smell starting to associate itself with the mortality-odor. 

Anyway, the plan.

The pub had closed. All non-essential buildings meant for social gatherings had been forcibly closed if their owners hadn’t died already.

So Aziraphale sent Crowley a note, requesting a meeting down an alley along Bread Street. Perhaps a bit too close to St. Mildred’s for Crowley’s liking, but he hadn’t argued so Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned it.

So, maybe the outfit was payback.

“I’ve got a job after this, angel. If you have a problem with it...well, you most likely have a problem with it on principle.”

Crowley had no business being dressed in velvet and furs in this part of town, no matter how near a church on a Sunday they were. It was asking for trouble, and it was wholly unrealistic, which was The Demon Crowley precisely and succinctly. How he wasn’t getting overheated in the emerald velvet coat lined with black bear fur, Aziraphale didn’t know. All he did know was that the furs framed Crowley’s beard-shrouded jaw and encircled his lean neck. 

Maybe that was the point.

The point in questions, which Aziraphale tried to forcibly remove from his mind, was that the outfit combined with the beard was…

Aziraphale cycled through adjectives in his mind; the only ones he could come up with sounded too emotive or complimentary, and Crowley would appreciate neither of those sentiments.

“I like the beard,” was the compliment Aziraphale settled on.

Aziraphale had never seen Crowley with a beard. He'd been clean-shaven more often than not over the years. If Aziraphale hadn't been able to sense Crowley's particular brand of demonic essence, he might not have recognized Crowley at all. The beard was...well, it was something. Full and thick, a shade or two lighter than the curls he normally saw on the demon’s head. Still crimson enough to be noticeable. The blend of hair on his temple hid the mark of the snake, hiding the last mark that made him more than human. To anyone not paying attention, as humans were wont to do, Crowley could be any other Lord en route to mass.

“Do you?” With an inquisitive eye and a skeptical brow, Crowley smiled at Aziraphale’s awkward attempt at complimenting. “Personally, I can’t wait to be rid of it.”

“Any particular reason you grew it in the first place?”

“Less growing, more of I made it exist for the job.”

“Yes, the job. You mentioned that.”

Crowley didn’t elaborate. Aziraphale didn’t inquire after the particulars.

“How’d the gig in Greece go?” Ah, yes. The whole reason Aziraphale had called this meeting in the first place.

“A successful temptation for your lot and blessing for mine, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Crowley’s grin turned to something more leering. “You could’ve sent a note if it was that boring, angel. No need to meet up in person, especially with the way things are now.”

“Well, perhaps I wanted…” Aziraphale trails off. There’s no easy or acceptable way for him to say he’d missed Crowley. It had been a few years, and they’d passed lonely and slowly with written interruptions in the form of Arrangement negotiations. Aziraphale had missed Crowley’s presence and his wine-soaked laugh and the sweat on his temples when they’d last seen each other in Morocco. 

The same sweat was gathering on his brow. The velvet was surely roasting, heat unbearable.

“Perhaps I wanted to see you,” Aziraphale says before he can overthink his words overmuch.

Judging from the shock and the slip of his grin, Crowley hadn’t been expecting the admission. He might have suspected Aziraphale’s missing him, but the depth went into the very recesses of Aziraphale’s self. Missing Crowley on an empathetic level was only the beginning of what Aziraphale felt, what he tried to ignore on an almost daily basis. Aziraphale missed Crowley’s body heat when seated at a pub counter. He missed Crowley’s sullen glares at a too-loud passerby on an otherwise quiet street. He missed his ill-hidden miracles of holy natures, noticed only because Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice instantly and instinctually the ways in which Crowley was sometimes Good, sometimes Not, and always with Intent.

“Did you?” Crowley tried to sound suave, Aziraphale was sure that was his plan, but it came out garbled and a little unsure of himself. 

“I rather think I did, dear boy.”

Crowley let out a breath that sounded as if it has been housed in his lungs since the plague began. 

So, this is how it was to be.

They were kissing in the next instant, wet and insistent. Aziraphale’s back pressed against brick and mortar, and he felt about as stable as the wall behind him, which was to say not at all. Crowley kept making noises, high pitched and wanting and they traveled southbound in Aziraphale’s bloodstream. 

It was like this, sometimes, since the beginning of their Arrangement. False excuses made by either party— a misplaced miracle, an accidental wonder, a failed mission performed for the opposite side— somehow one of them would make insistences, and the other would follow, and then…

“Missed you, too, angel.” 

Crowley’s beard scraped Aziraphale’s sensitive jawline and the flesh of his chin as the kisses meandered downward. Tongue-heat against his neck, scorching in a way Aziraphale could only imagine infernal fire to feel like. If Aziraphale had allowed it, Crowley would have bitten kisses into his neck and left the marks there as prize winnings. It was like this, sometimes, but not often enough to satiate Aziraphale. Not enough for him to call any of their dalliances off in the name of propriety or decorum or sin.

“Crowley, we—” but before Aziraphale could list off the many variant reasons this needed to stop, Crowley dropped to his knees. Aziraphale swore, forcing his fists to mimic his back and press into the brick behind him.

Crowley snorted. “You were saying?” He brushed an errant lock of hair out of his face before tackling the ties at Aziraphale’s waist, loosening the trousers just enough to reveal Aziraphale’s cock.

Aziraphale gave a whimper of his own, one much less high-pitched than Crowley’s, as Crowley took him in hand and began stroking, face close and breath hot against him. 

“Crowley, oh Lord, I think —” Aziraphale thought many things, ran through lists and desires and itineraries of why this was a terrible idea, but he found it impossible to focus enough to get any words out. And he couldn’t blame Crowley for distracting him— though if that were Crowley’s intention, he was doing a smashing job of it.

“I think you think too much,” Crowley said, removing his hand for a moment to spit in it and bring it back to his ministrations, grip tighter and slower.

Aziraphale was surely going to discorporate. He snapped a quick miracle to shroud the two of them in relative privacy, but he knew he didn’t have the mental wherewithal to make sure the miracle was successful. 

“Can I taste you?” Crowley asked softly, juxtaposed almost hilariously from the frantic motion of his hand on Aziraphale’s cock. “You can say no, but I’d thought I’d ask.”

Frantic, Aziraphale nodded, and probably looked desperate doing so. He was too enamored with Crowley’s quiet earnestness, shocked at the relaxed nature of his inquiry. That Crowley offered this, wanted this— more than that, wanted Aziraphale…

Crowley leaned forward, licked at the rivulet of precome emanating from the head of Aziraphale’s cock, and that was apparently all Aziraphale needed.

“God, God, Crowley I’m—” but the warning was barely out of Aziraphale’s mouth before he was coming, orgasm wrenched out of him with enough force to make him spasm, back bending and knees locked. Aziraphale watched as he painted Crowley’s face with his spend, stark and distinct against his hair. It streaked down slowly, rivers meandering down the hair on Crowley’s chin and left cheek. It was a shock of white on red. On instinct, Aziraphale reached down, took Crowley’s cheek in his hand, and smeared his spill with his thumb. It left gray streaks in the strands as Aziraphale continued the movement, simultaneously caressing and admiring the feel of Crowley’s jaw underneath the sprawl of hair and the spend of himself. 

Aziraphale met Crowley’s eyes, what little he could see above his glasses, and froze at the expression he met there. 

Crowley’s eyes were wide, moving frantically from Aziraphale’s face to his cock. He was breathing heavily, matching Aziraphale’s own breath, tandem terror and rapture.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale whispered. “We shouldn’t have—”

Crowley was moving before Aziraphale answered. All smooth movement and assurance, Crowley tucked Aziraphale back into his trousers. Before he stood to full height, he swiped one of the lavender-scented handkerchiefs from Aziraphale’s pocket and used it to wipe his face clean. Aziraphale wished, secretly, that he was close enough to see the smear of his spend as Crowley wiped at his jaw and his cheek. All he could do was lewdly imagine, pretend that he could smell himself in the hair on Crowley’s face.

Crowley tucked the square of fabric into his pocket, crumpled and scrunched: he had not even bothered to fold it. “S’no problem, angel. Looked like you had a good time.”

“We shouldn’t do this again, Crowley.” Aziraphale hated the words as he spoke them, but they needed to be said. “It’s too dangerous.”

Crowley looked as though he didn’t agree, but defiance was his nature, after all. He smirked. “You always say that, though.” He smiled, and it looked sad for a moment before it regained its usual teasing nature. “See you in a few years, then?”

Aziraphale watched him leave until he disappeared around the corner with a jaunty swish of green velvet.

**1601**

When Aziraphale returns from Scotland, he meets with Crowley ostensibly to go over notes of the assignment. Crowley had let a room in the Golden Cross, which Aziraphale thought a bit sacrilegious of a demon to stay at. The air is stale with old river air and ill-ventilated streets, but Crowley has lavender hanging above the doorway and the open window, where the view looks over the Thames, which helps however minutely. 

“How’d Scotland go?” Crowley asks. He is comfortable here, Aziraphale noticed. Glasses gone; hair untied and flowing. His beard was still there, unfortunately; Aziraphale found himself unable to stop staring at it.

Crowley didn’t offer a chair to Aziraphale, so Aziraphale remained standing.

“It went well, I—”

“Good,” Crowley says, and then kisses Aziraphale.

Aziraphale responds immediately because he always does. 

It’s been like this since the inception of their Arrangement. The giving and taking of favors to ease their time on Earth has always been repaid with favors of a more prohibitive kind. There hadn’t been words, and there hadn’t been explanations. It just started, and then continued, and then not stopped.

Aziraphale sometimes wished it would stop, but not enough to push Crowley away; not enough to not bring their bodies closer together as they fell onto Crowley’s uncomfortable straw mattress in his room looking over the Thames.

“I heard them talking downstairs,” Aziraphale breathed rather than said, too focused on Crowley pinning him into the mattress and kissing him near senseless. “They’ve talking all over London, actually. It’s all I’ve rage.” Crowley made a noise of assent, to prove he was listening, as his lips moved to Aziraphale’s ear and his beard tickled at Crowley’s neck. “Hamlet is a roaring success.”

Crowley gave an inquisitive noise at that, starting high and ending low; a noise that said  _ Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.  _

Aziraphale rolled his eyes at it and pushed at Crowley’s shoulder to get the attention of his eyes. Crowley fought the motion; stubbornly continued licking at the patch of skin beneath Aziraphale’s ear. “Crowley,” Aziraphale added a warning of authority to his voice, and Crowley obeyed, moving so their eyes met. Aziraphale felt the brush of Crowley’s chest with each deep, needless breath they took. “Thank you.”

Crowley bent his head, a supplicant at an unholy altar, and busied himself with undoing the buttons of Aziraphale’s trousers and pulling them down. “Don’t do that. Thank me. Bad form.”

“It was a very kind—” 

“Stop.” Crowley let his own wicked authority bleed into the words, but the effect was undone by the image of Crowley scrambling backward, pushing off his own trousers and underthings. “Stop that. It was a favor. Just like this. Don’t make it a thing.”

_ Just like this… _

Aziraphale ignored the bile gathering in his throat, a betrayal of the emotions that lingered ill-hidden under his surface, crumbling with every encounter with Crowley.

“You didn’t have to do that. That’s all I wanted to say.”

It’s  _ not _ all Aziraphale wanted to say, but it seems to put Crowley in better spirits. Or, at least, he doesn’t look as offended at those words as he did as Azirphale calling him “kind.”

“Bend your legs, angel.” Crowley snaps, and the sound of it dissipates as the ensuing miracle coats Crowley’s fingers with oil. “And get a pillow under your arse. I’ll never hear the end of it if you twinge your back again.”

Aziraphale snapped his own miracle at the suggestion, hips tilted obligingly upward. “That was one time! I— oh.” Aziraphale interrupted himself with a moan, spread his legs as wide as they could go to allow Crowley to settle between them. Crowley had started touching him, slick and insistent. “Crowley, more, please.” Crowley’s fingers were moving agonizingly slow, taking their dear time circling his rim, not even breaching him.

“Greedy,” Crowley commented conversationally. “Isn’t patience a virtue?” He trailed his fingers up, grazing his knuckles over Aziraphale’s perineum, his bollocks, his cock. 

“I won't, ah, I won’t take criticism on my virtues from a demon.” Aziraphale thrusts his hips up again, chasing Crowley’s touch, but it disappears. Aziraphale whines, hating the desperation he unintentionally let bleed through. Crowley takes pity, apparently, because in the next moment he’s back at Aziraphale’s entrance, cooperative fingers entering him slowly. The whine morphs into a moan, pitiful and desperate. The demon is moving devilish-slow; a temptation and a tease and altogether terrible. Why Aziraphale allows this to happen, he doesn’t know.

Why he craves it, he knows even less.

“God’s sake, Crowley—”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Crowley ridicules, pressing another finger inside. At this motion, Crowley’s fingers graze against the portion of himself that makes Aziraphale wail, throw his head back, thrust even more uselessly onto Crowley’s now-frozen fingers.

“Fuck me.” Aziraphale doesn’t beg, but it’s a near thing.

“Ssshit.” Crowley retracts his hands, is a blur of movement, faster than any mortal. Aziraphale lifts his head and watches Crowley’s fast-paced enthusiasm in slow motion. His red prick, hard and eager; his wide eyes, bright and desiring; his tongue, quick and wet as Crowley licks his lips. He gets spit on the short hairs of his goatee. Aziraphale can’t look away from the sight. He also doesn’t have to look at himself to know that his own want is just as obvious. “Where’d you learn to talk like that, angel?”

“Do shut up.” Aziraphale spreads his legs, bends his knees again. “You know that I’ve been on this earth just as long as you have, so there’s no need to ask inane questions.”

“Then I don’t need to ask if you’re ready?” There really is no end to the curious prodding of Crowley’s humor against Aziraphale’s unfathomable facade of hidden emotions. Though, maybe there is a limit; Aziraphale resolves to test the demon’s resolve, tease him back until Crowley is compliant and cared for and charmed and—

No. None of that. Not ever.

Aziraphale nods. He doesn’t trust his voice just yet.

Once Crowley is inside him, his voice disappears altogether save for moans reminiscent of Crowley’s name and whimpers that echo in the near-empty room. With Crowley balanced above him, looking down with an indiscernible smile, Aziraphale feels his heart lurch. Crowley is so beautiful, so kind to him, so good. 

He has to kiss him, so he does; one hand buries itself in Crowley’s locks, and the other grasps at his jaw. Crowley’s ridiculous beard— and it is ridiculous, Aziraphale won’t hear any detractory arguments, the beard is awful and Aziraphale hates it just a bit but not enough to stop kissing Crowley

The beard scratches at Aziraphale's chin and does little for Crowley's jawline and Aziraphale hates it, but he can't help but love the idea of the hair there being wrecked, of it bearing a physical manifestation of their desire and wants and illicit affairs. He recalls the saliva at the edges, tinting the hair darker, wants to see the spread of that blood-color, and be the wound-cause of it.

Aziraphale can't ask Crowley to do anything, though. Aziraphale can only take what Crowley offers, and he offers to so much, all the time, pretending he's a better demon than he actually is while simultaneously pushing his food towards Aziraphale, offering Aziraphale lifts home in shared carriages he’ll inevitably pay for, holding on to Aziraphale's arm when they stumble along London’s streets, offering to take care of Aziraphale in every improper sense. 

Aziraphale can't ask. He hopes Crowley will.

“Angel," Crowley says, voice low with a want Aziraphale can't identify. He's searching for a release. Aziraphale will grant him this. "'M gonna come."

Aziraphale gasps out his acceptance, he can’t give vocalization to this.

"Gonna— can I—" Crowley groans, tightens his fingers into Aziraphale's hips; will he miracle away the bruises later? If Crowley forgets to, Aziraphale won't remind him. He’ll keep the stain on this skin for remembrance, mark his flesh and seal it unopened, don’t open up, don't break the wax seal, they'll know Aziraphale's been marred.

"Can I taste you? After I come?"

It's indecent and filthy and Aziraphale, naturally, nods in affirmation. He can't acquiesce out loud, not to this; not here, not now, not ever. 

Crowley shouts when he comes, thighs shaking, fingers a vice, mouth pressed indelicately to Aziraphale's shoulders and it does nothing to muffle the sound. Aziraphale wouldn't have it any other way. 

Demons are natural time wasters, but Crowley isn’t that good of a demon on any given day. He gives a brief kiss to Aziraphale's cock after he pulls about and moves down Aziraphale’s body. Aziraphale twitches, moans, but not too loud. No one can hear, no one can know. Crowley can scream out his desires because that's what he does, it's who he is, it's the demonic inclination, Aziraphale wouldn't have Crowley any other way. 

Crowley's tongue is almost unbearable with its heat and persistence at Aziraphale's entrance. Aziraphale clamps a hand over his mouth, and then the other. He can sense the damp devouring, spit and spill intermingled, the burning burr of Crowley’s hair against his sensitive skin.

Crowley pulls back.

"Fuck," Aziraphale says behind his hands, voice cracking 

Crowley is a mess. Hair frizzy, yellow eyes wide and amazed; the beard is drenched in his own come, plastered to his chin; indecent and indelible and decadent. 

"I want you to come from this."

Aziraphale moans in response; nods. He can't trust himself to speak, can't give weight to any words he might be able to utter had he more mind about him.

Simultaneously, he can't stop looking at Crowley, at his chin, at his hair painted white. Aziraphale would very much like to run his fingers through the mess, taste the mixture of essences, experience the delights to his palate.

"Hey," Aziraphale forces himself to meet Crowley’s gaze at his soft inquiry. "I've got you."

Aziraphale ndds again.

Crowley dives down, obstinate tongue at Aziraphale's entrance, and Aziraphale obeys Crowley’s command. He comes untouched, essence erupting and coating his unbuttoned doublet; staining and spotting. He's hot and twitching with the shock of it, his knees and thighs are protesting the angle. It's uncomfortable and it hurts and Aziraphale wants more.

"Shh," Crowley says, voice soft as he tries to soothe Aziraphale's shivering. He hadn’t noticed the shaking until that moment. “You’re okay.” Crowley kneels, hovers his hands above Aziraphale’s waist.

He doesn't know, he can't know, how much Aziraphale loves his; how he longs to be undone like this. 

"I've got you."

Aziraphale knows this, of course he does. Crowley always has him.

Crowley wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the mess even further before drying it off completely Aziraphale is a little ashamed by how disappointing the sight is, but doesn't show it.

“Uh,” Crowley stammers, raises his hand. “I’ll just—”

Aziraphale grasps Crowley's wrist before the sound rings, out, using the last vestige of his mentality to keep Crowley from continuing. "Leave it."

"You're a mess, angel."

"I'll take care of it after..."

Crowley's eyes slither to slits, narrowed, near anger but no unwilling to show it. "Right. Got it."

Crowley doesn't say anything as e gets dressed, doesn't look at Aziraphale as he leaves.

Aziraphale doesn't say anything, either. 

**1977**

Aziraphale sees Crowley’s flat for the first time in the summer, a humid and damp and dark place. It’s perfect for a demon.

He’s there for the same excuse as always: meeting up, comparing notes, fucking. Aziraphale feels an odd mixture of restless and tired and frustrated and angry at the charade of it all.

They hadn’t seen each other in near a decade. Crowley grew a mustache in their time apart. Aziraphale hates it. Despises it. It puts him in a foul mood as soon as Crowley shows him the plant room, turns away from Aziraphale to water a potted sprig of lavender. Aziraphale scowls; doesn’t allow Crowley to see it.

"Is Hell hiring you out for spacious salacious erotic videos nowadays?"

"What are you on about?" Crowley doesn’t turn around, but he does pause his ministrations.

"I'll dumb it down for you, dear. Are you making porn on Hell's behest?"

"The twentieth century changed you, angel." Crowley went back to watering his plants. "I don't know if I like this sudden sense of humor you've developed. Do you remember how unfunny you were in Greece?"

"Greek comedies weren't my style."

"Making sarcastic remarks about my appearance is?" Crowley gives a pointed over his shoulder, which only makes the horrific mustache on his lip more prominent. "Not very angelic of you. What is the saying? 'If you can't say something nice...?’"

"I can't find another reason for you to look so ridiculous, Crowley."

At that, Crowley set down his watering can. this apparently needed his full attention. "This is the fashion, angel. 'S all the rage. Sex appeal. Burt Reynolds in  _ Smokey _ —"

"You know perfectly well I have no idea who that is," which was true in that Aziraphale had never personally met Burt Reynolds, but incorrect in that he'd seen the film in question, but would never tell Crowley that. "Regardless, I despise it."

"You don’t." The tone was accusatory but it also had a hint of something akin to realization. "I know you don't." Crowley strode forward, pushing Aziraphale up against a wall, watering can and plants and plans and the reason Aziraphale was there in the first place apparently forgotten. "I think you like it. I think you love-"

Aziraphale had to shut Crowley up, so he did the only way he knew how. He grabbed at Crowley’s hair, made to pull him into a kiss, but Crowley resisted.

"What's this for then?" Crowley always did have an infuriating habit of speaking when he should have been silent. "Haven't done anything worth thanking me for recently."

"Is that what you think this is?" 

"Isn’t it?" Crowley shot back, annoyed and spitting and with a different kind of anger from his normal sullenness. This wasn't well-meant; this didn’t have an undercurrent of kindness or care. This was Crowley catching on. 

Their dalliance, the multitudes of them over the years, the marking of Aziraphale's shame upon Crowley, marring his hair, the mess of them in limbs and language and longing. 

Crowley knows.

Oh,  _ God.  _ He knows. Crowley knows what Aziraphale wants, and in turn wants Aziraphale to say it aloud.

Aziraphale pushes him away. "Nothing. You've done nothing worth thankfulness. My mistake. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Very kind of you."

"Don't say that." The anger hasn't left. There's no softness here, no taking care. The stop and start, overturn of this engine; the overflow and oil spill of this mistake. There will be stains if Aziraphale doesn't leave immediately and scrub at his consciousness until the memory disappears.

So he leaves. 

He closes the door to Crowley’s flat behind him, lets his hand linger on the doorknob. He pauses for a moment, lets his hand linger, waiting for Crowley to follow him out, waiting for Crowley to beg for him back.

The door stays closed.

Aziraphale lets go of the handle. He does not see Crowley for twenty years

**2019**

Crowley is beautiful in the bookshops lighting. it's for a myriad of reasons. crow there's not a scenery that Crowley doesn't look alluring in. It's the demonic nature of him, the temptation quirk of eyebrows and beckoning and smile and hips that gravitate in their own orbit. Aziraphale has been caught for centuries; the both of them have. Circling each other, out of reach except for the instances where Crowley reaches out, or Aziraphale moves forward, but never in any direction he wants to. 

Aziraphale knows the shapes and intricacies of Crowley’s body, has hints of Crowley’s heart, but he keeps him at arm’s length even in Armageddon’s aftermath.

It's terrifying, really. reckoning with the realization that the walls have been snapped out of existence. 

Crowley looks toward Aziraphale as if sensing Aziraphale has been thinking of him. it's not un an uncomfortable realization. There's been hardly a moment Aziraphale hasn't thought of Crowley since the beginning of time itself.

"You alright, angel?"

Aziraphale laughs. "I love you."

Crowley takes off his glasses, places them on the bookshelf he's been circling for the better part of a distracted hour, and blinks slowly at Aziraphale. "Yeah?"

Aziraphale scoffs. "What on earth does that mean? 'Yeah?’" Aziraphale repeats in a poor interpretation of Crowley. "How on earth is that an acceptable response?"

"Because I already knew. Well," Crowley shrugs. "I assumed anyway. "

"You  _ assumed _ ."

"You kept pushing me away. Kept telling me I went too fast. What other conclusion was I supposed to come to?"

"I used you, Crowley. You'd be..." he doesn't say  _ nice _ this time. "You'd do something for me, a favor, and I'd thank you by..." Aziraphale finds himself flushing at the fast flashes of their seductions that appear unbidden in his memory. 

"S’not like I was an unwilling participant, angel."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Pretend that I don't." Crowley strides forward to stand in front of the angel. He doesn't crowd. he doesn't close in. There is space to breathe between them, allowances for words.

So Aziraphale breaths and speaks.

"I love you. I thought I was using you for sexual gratification. I pushed you away. I was cruel when I thought it was too much when I realized what I felt. I wanted to see everything between us as transactional, but I couldn't. I never could. I didn't want to. But I was so scared, my dear. Crowley, I was terrified. I'm terrified now. I don't know how to stop being scared except to..." Aziraphale trails off. He’s close to crying. Crowley’s expression is unfathomable. "I'm so sorry."

Crowley can be so effusive when he puts his mind to it. He doesn't always resort to nonsense words and sounds without meaning.

This is not one of those times.

"SSsss, uh, huh," is what he very verbosely utters.

"I love you and I have misused you and I am so sorry, Crowley. I understand if you don't feel the same--"

"Christ, you  _ are _ an idiot."

Crowley is smiling while he says it, sudden and so beautiful, so Aziraphale smiles back on instinct despite his ever lessening-confusion.

"How can you not know I love you, too?" Crowley whispers.

Aziraphale had hoped (he'd prayed a few times about it, too. He was ashamed to look towards heaven as he did. He directed his prayers forward, horizon-pointed, to where the clouds and ground kissed each other eternally, and prayed that Crowley felt the same, that one day Crowley would have enough bravery for the both of them to say so. Mysterious ways and all that, Aziraphale supposed) for those words. To hear them now is overwhelming.

Not too overwhelming, however.

Aziraphale has never kissed Crowley while he's barefaced. It's delightful. He must have shaved and or miracle himself shaved recently, because the stretch of skin along his cheekbones is smooth. There is nothing stopping the slide of Aziraphale’s lips against Crowley's, no interruption to their simultaneous movements. Crowley is smiling into their kiss, and Aziraphale only knows this because he hears Crowley laughs, delighted, giddy, into his mouth. Aziraphale giggles in return, open-mouthed, relieved.

"Aziraphale, I love you. So much. I wanna--" Crowley cuts himself off with a mother kiss to Aziraphale's lip. "Can I--?" He's reaching for Aziraphale's trousers, fingers a tease-touch on the inseam.

"No," Aziraphale says, grabs one of Crowley’s wrist in each hand. The sudden movement forces Crowley too look at Aziraphale a little dazedly. "You first."

Crowley looks confused until Aziraphale lets go of Crowley's wrists and drops to his knees in front of him. "Oh  _ fuck.” _

"Later, perhaps."

Crowley groans, covers his face with his hands, and leans back into the bookshelf this with an ominous rattle of wood and books. 

"Lower your hands, darling. You're going to look at me while I service you."

"I hate you." Crowley pauses to grip the shelves being him. "I lied, no I don't. I love you. I'm a demon, lying is my first nature. I love you."

"I know you do, my darling." Crowley is hard, obviously so, and Aziraphale makes short work of freeing Crowley's cock of its confines. "Watch me. Don't look away. Don't cover your mouth. I shall hear you, I think." Aziraphale has never done this for Crowley, but he's always wanted to, has been imagining the scenario for centuries. 

His imagination has not adequately prepared him for reality. 

Crowley whines at the first graze of Aziraphale's lips to his do cock. He doesn't know when or show to shut up, and Aziraphale likes him that way. It's why he asks Crowley to be vocal. The two of them have been silent for far too long. "Fuck,  _ angel. _ " 

Aziraphale takes the head of his cock into his mouth, swirls his tongue; he's well-practiced in savoring something on his palate. 

"Angel—Aziraphale." Crowley's hips jerk forward, so Aziraphale handles them back, pinning him to the bookshelf. "’M gonna come, I'm sorry, I can't--"

Aziraphale pulls back. He makes sure Crowley meets his gaze before he speaks. "Then come."

Crowley does.

Aziraphale is a little sorry that he has to close his eyes while Crowley spends over his face, covering his skin with his seed, but the sounds Crowley makes paint a pretty picture in Aziraphale's mind. Aziraphale keeps his mouth open. desperate groans and gasps of Aziraphale's name. There are tears in Crowley's voice as he repeats  _ I love you _ in idolator's tones. 

Aziraphale opens his eyes after a few moments, the slowing of Crowley’s breath perhaps just as gorgeous as his screaming. His hands are still on Crowley's hips. There is a smile on Crowley's face. 

Crowley drops to his knees and does not clean Aziraphale's face before he kisses him, again, and again, and again.

**Author's Note:**

> please, for the love of all that is holy and unholy, read summerofspocks series about the eroticism of fluid in facial hair. They wrote [Kiss It Better](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24151783) as if reaching into my brain and pulling out kinks geared especially towards me <3


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